He slid indifferently away from it at once, and began to ask idle
questions about other things, so as to slip around and spring on it
from behind, so to speak: tedious and empty questions as to
whether the Voice had told her she would escape from this prison;
and if it had furnished answers to be used by her in to-day’s s‚ance;
if it was accompanied with a glory of light; if it had eyes, etc. That
risky remark of Joan’s was this:
“Without the Grace of God I could do nothing.”
The court saw the priest’s game, and watched his play with a cruel
eagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy and absent; possibly she
was tired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect
it. The time was ripe now, and Beaupere quietly and stealthily
sprang his trap:
“Are you in a state of Grace?”
Ah, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of
judges; and Jean Lefevre was one of them. He sprang to his feet
and cried out:
“It is a terrible question! The accused is not obliged to answer it!”
Cauchon’s face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to
the perishing child, and he shouted:
“Silence! and take your seat. The accused will answer the
question!”
There was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she
said yes or whether she said no, it would be all the same–a
disastrous answer, for the Scriptures had said one cannot know this
thing. Think what hard hearts they were to set this fatal snare for
that ignorant young girl and be proud of such work and happy in it.
It was a miserable moment for me while we waited; it seemed a
year. All the house showed excitement; and mainly it was glad
excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering faces with
innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she brought
out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare
away as it had been but a cobweb:
“If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in
it, I pray God keep me so.”
Ah, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live.
For a space there was the silence of the grave. Men looked
wondering into each other’s faces, and some were awed and
crossed themselves; and I heard Lefevre mutter:
“It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence
comes this child’s amazing inspirations?”
Beaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of
his defeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and
dreary business of it, he not being able to put any heart in it.
He asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about
the oak wood, and the fairies, and the children’s games and romps
under our dear Arbre f‚e de Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old
memories broke her voice and made her cry a little, but she bore
up as well as she could, and answered everything.
Then the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her
apparel–a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this
still-hunt for this innocent creature’s life, but kept always hanging
over her, a menace charged with mournful possibilities:
“Would you like a woman’s dress?”
“Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison–but here, no.”
Chapter 8 Joan Tells of Her Visions
THE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it?
The Bishop ignored the contract limiting the examination to
matters set down in the procЉs verbal and again commanded Joan
to take the oath without reservations. She said:
“You should be content I have sworn enough.”
She stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield.
The examination was resumed, concerning Joan’s Voices.
“You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of
angels the third time that you heard them. What angels were they?”
“St. Catherine and St. Marguerite.”
“How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you
tell the one from the other?”